Month: November 2021

Internet Governance Meta Faces Lawsuit In Ohio Over Facebook Whistleblower Revelations: The securities suit brought by the state’s Attorney General on behalf of the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System and other investors alleges that the company misled the public about the “safety, security, and privacy of its platform,” and that fallout from whistleblower Frances Haugen’s revelations has cost investors over $100 billion.

Privacy Instagram Turns To Video Selfies For Account Verification: The platform has begun asking that users of suspected bot accounts submit video selfies that showcase “all angles of [the] face”; while Instagram owner Meta last week announced that it will begin shutting down certain uses of facial recognition, the company said that Instagram teams—not facial recognition technology—review verification videos.  Artists And Rights Groups Condemn The Use Of Palm-Reading Technology At Concert Venues: In a letter to ticket provider AXS, its parent AEG, and the Red Rocks amphitheater, over 200 artists and activists have demanded the cancellation of contracts to use the Amazon One palm-reading technology—and other forms of biometric technology—at venues over concerns that Amazon may send biometric data to law enforcement agencies for use toward tracking activists and marginalized people.

Information Security and Cyberthreats Robinhood Hackers Made Away With “Several Thousand” Phone Numbers: The investment platform, which revealed a significant security breach last week, announced that in addition to stealing usernames and email addresses, the hackers also stole an estimated 4,400 phone numbers, which may be used to perpetrate further hacks. Singaporean Data Protection Authority Fines Travel Company For Data Breach: In response to the largest data breach it’s handled to date, Singapore’s Personal Data Protection Commission fined Commeasure for a breach that exposed 5.9 million users’ names, phone numbers, email addresses, birthdays, passwords, and booking information.

Intellectual Property Apple Expands Consumer Options For Self-Repair: In what amounts to a significant shift for the company, beginning next year it will begin to publish repair manuals and make parts for its products available for sale to the public so that users can repair their own devices.

Free Expression and Censorship Disney’s Text-To-Speech TikTok Voice Censored Certain LGBTQ Words: The feature, which rolled out last week as part of a Disney Plus Day promotion and converts text to speech in the sound of various Disney characters’ voices, initially skipped over words such as “gay,” “lesbian,” or “queer”; the issue has now been resolved without comment from TikTok.

On the Lighter Side Instagram Introduces “Rage Shake” For Reporting Problems: Users who experience technical issues with the app can take out their frustration (and send a report to Instagram) by vigorously shaking their phone.

If you enjoy reading CLIP-ings, please consider making a contribution to Fordham CLIP. Your support provides crucial funding at a time when the study of information law and policy is more important than ever.

Ron Lazebnik Academic Director, Fordham CLIP Tom Norton Executive Director, Fordham CLIP

Internet Governance DOJ Suit Alleges Uber’s “Wait Time” Fees For Passengers With Disabilities Violate ADA: In the suit, the Department of Justice alleges that the ridesharing company’s practice of subjecting riders who take extra time to enter vehicles to extra fees violates the Americans With Disabilities Act; Uber, which calls the suit “surprising and disappointing,” says that the fees were not intended for riders with valid needs for extra time, and has already “automatically waived” them for riders who self-certify as disabled. Google Loses Appeal In EU Price-Comparison Shopping Antitrust Case: The bloc’s General Court upheld a 2017 decision by the European Commission to fine the company €2.4 billion for prioritizing its own price-comparison shopping service while “relegating the results from competing comparison services . . . by means of ranking algorithms.”

Privacy Meta Will Curtail Advertisers’ Ability To Target Ads Based On Sensitive Categories: Beginning in 2022, the company (formerly Facebook) will remove keywords that enable advertisers to perform “Detailed Targeting” of users based on sensitive characteristics such as health, race or ethnicity, political affiliation, religion, and sexual orientation; the change will apply broadly across Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger, as well as Meta’s “audience network.”

Information Security and Cyberthreats Stock-Trading App Robinhood Suffers Breach: 7 million customers were reportedly affected by the hack, with 5 million having their email addresses leaked, 2 million having their full names leaked, and just over 300 having their names, dates of birth, and zip codes leaked.

Intellectual Property Apple Will Stop Disabling Face ID On Independently Repaired iPhones: In a move that bolsters the right to repair, the company is releasing a software update for the iPhone 13 model that will ensure that Face ID functions after a device’s screen is replaced; prior to the update, the feature would not work if third-party repair shops replaced a phone’s screen without also undertaking a time-consuming and laborious process to replace a microcontroller in the device’s display.

Free Expression and Censorship YouTube To Hide Dislikes To Curb Harassment: To prevent abuses including coordinated efforts to increase the number of dislikes on the videos of particular users, YouTube will stop making dislike counts publicly visible and will instead show them only on content creators’ private dashboards.

Practice Note UK Supreme Court Denies Class Action Against Google Over Secret Tracking: The court ruled that the £3 billion proposed class action brought on behalf of 4.4 million people, which alleged that Google misused iPhone users’ data by collecting information about their internet usage when they believed they were opted out of tracking, was “unsustainable” in that it alleged only unlawful data processing and did not detail each individual’s resulting suffering of material damage or mental distress.

On the Lighter Side Find Your Pet In Art History: As a follow-up to its 2018 Art Selfie feature, which harnessed AI to match your photo with lookalikes in famous paintings, Google has now released Pet Portraits, which compares your pets with animals depicted in artworks around the globe.

If you enjoy reading CLIP-ings, please consider making a contribution to Fordham CLIP. Your support provides crucial funding at a time when the study of information law and policy is more important than ever.

Ron Lazebnik Academic Director, Fordham CLIP Tom Norton Executive Director, Fordham CLIP

Internet Governance Former Google Employee Joins FTC As AI Policy Advisor: Meredith Whittaker, whose work at Google and on New York City’s Automated Decision Systems Task Force focused on algorithmic equity and transparency, will join the Commission as Senior Advisor on AI; in 2018, Whittaker organized a walkout at Google in protest of the company’s handling of alleged sexual harassment.  Congress Called To Regulate Stablecoins Like Banks: A report by the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets advocates that issuers of stablecoins—a type of digital asset tied to traditional currencies that is often used to facilitate transactions of other cryptocurrencies—be regulated “akin to insured depository institutions” to ensure consumer trust and mitigate “risks to the broader financial system.”

Privacy Facebook Halts Facial Recognition System: In the wake of increasing scrutiny from lawmakers and users around the globe that has led to costly lawsuits and fines in recent years, the company announced that it will be “shutting down its facial recognition system and deleting the facial recognition templates of more than 1 billion people”; the company also said that it nevertheless still views the technology as a “powerful tool,” and will “continue working on [it] and engaging outside experts.” Clearview AI Found To Have Violated Australian Privacy Law: Following a joint investigation with the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner found that Clearview’s photo- and data-scraping practices violate the Australian Privacy Act 1988; in a statement, the country’s Information and Privacy Commissioner said that Clearview’s “covert collection of . . . sensitive information is unreasonably intrusive and unfair,” and “carries significant risk of harm to individuals, including vulnerable groups . . . .”

Information Security and Cyberthreats Commerce Department Adds NSO Group To Entity List Over Pegasus Spyware: According to the Department, NSO Group “developed and supplied spyware to foreign governments that used these tools to maliciously target government officials, journalists, businesspeople, activists, academics, and embassy workers,” and as a result, it will now be restricted in its use of American technology; NSO’s Pegasus spyware was discovered on the devices of journalists and activists earlier this year.

Intellectual Property Video Game Modifier Pleads Guilty To Anticircumvention Charges: The 51-year-old Canadian national will pay $4.5 million to Nintendo for his role in a conspiracy to hack popular gaming consoles and “develop[ ], manufacture[ ], market[ ], and [sell] a variety of circumvention devices that allowed the enterprise’s customers to play pirated versions of copyrighted video games.”

Free Expression and Censorship Facebook Removes Comprehensive Troll Farm Run By Nicaraguan Government: According to a Facebook report, multiple Nicaraguan government institutions—including the country’s Social Security Institute and Supreme Court—were connected to a network of fake accounts across multiple social media platforms, as well as “a complex network of media brands”; Facebook called the case unique in that it is a first-of-its-kind “whole-of-government operation.”

On the Lighter Side Apple Plans “Crash Detection” Feature For iPhones And Apple Watches: The feature, which will rely on devices’ built-in accelerometer and other sensors, will detect suspected car crashes and automatically dial 911.

Ron Lazebnik Academic Director, Fordham CLIP Tom Norton Executive Director, Fordham CLIP